1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates generally to systems capable of generating, transmitting and receiving electronic messages, and specifically to an event notification system that is able to correlate outgoing messages with associated response messages.
2. Background
In certain settings, it is beneficial to be able to submit requests for assistance that can be automatically distributed to the correct recipient or recipients, and then determine whether the recipient has received and responded to the request. Communication systems are in use that receive messages from one or more event generation devices (EGD), process the event messages to determine which of one or more recipients should receive information included in the event message, transmit an event notification message to the correct recipient(s), receive a response to the notification message from the recipient, determine whether the response is valid or not, and then determine what to do with the response. These systems are typically referred to as Event Notification Systems (ENS) and they can be useful in healthcare settings, emergency management settings, retail or commercial settings, and in many other settings. FIG. 1 is a diagram of a communication network 10 that includes an Event Notification System 11 (ENS), a device 12 that generates event messages and a device 13 for receiving event notification messages. The event generation device 12 can be linked to the ENS 11 via a wired or wireless connection and can be in communication with the ENS over a proprietary or a standard communication protocol. The ENS 11 can be linked to the receiving device 13 over a wireless or wired connection operating according to either a standard or proprietary communications protocol.
Event Notification Systems are designed and can be configured to process a large number of event messages for distribution to a large number of recipients. In order for an ENS to process a response to an outgoing event message, and based upon the response to initiate a meaningful action, it is necessary that certain information included in the outgoing event message be correlated with certain information included in an incoming response. So, for instance, if ten event messages are generated in a health care setting at a particular point in time for distribution to ten or more recipients, and some or all of the event messages are generated for different reasons (i.e., nurse needs assistance in a particular room, or a particular operating room needs medicine or supplies, or a particular elevator has stopped working with passengers inside), the ENS should be designed such that it is able to determine which of the responses correspond with which ones of the event notification messages, otherwise any action that the ENS takes as the result of the response could be meaningless.